Tom Cruise Tops Forbes’ List of the Highest Paid Actors in Hollywood
Tom Cruise may have lost his wife, but one thing he hasn’t lost is his ability to make money — serious money. In fact, he’s just topped Forbes‘ annual list of Hollywood’s highest paid actors.
Thanks to getting a chunk of the profits from last fall’s wildly successful ‘Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol’ and other pricey roles including one in the upcoming sci-fi film ‘Oblivion,’ the 50-year-old Cruise took home the tidy sum of $75 million in the past year. Some industry analysts, though, warn that if his pending divorce from Katie Holmes gets messy, it could hurt his earning potential in the years to come.
Cruise’s payday is more than twice the $37 million earned by Leonardo DiCaprio and Adam Sandler, who tied for second on the list. (Yes, the same Adam Sandler who recently put out ‘Jack and Jill,’ which got scathing reviews and racked up 10 Razzie nominations, makes more money in a year than you’ll likely see in a lifetime.)
But although DiCaprio and Sandler made what seems like a pittance compared to Cruise, it’s still more than Hollywood’s highest paid actress — Kristen Stewart — made last year. She only hauled in $34.5 million, but that at least put her ahead of her ‘Twilight’ co-stars, Taylor Lautner and Robert Pattinson, who brought up the bottom of the actors’ list with $26.5 million each.
When upfront pay, profit participation, residuals, endorsements and advertising work were all taken into account, here are the actors Forbes deemed the highest paid in Hollywood, along with how much they made between May of 2011 and the same month this year:
1. Tom Cruise – $75 million
2. Leonardo DiCaprio and Adam Sandler – $37 million
3. Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson – $36 million
4. Ben Stiller – $33 million
5. Sacha Baron Cohen – $30 million
6. Johnny Depp and Will Smith – $30 million
7. Mark Wahlberg – $27 million
8. Taylor Lautner and Robert Pattinson – $26.5 million